We love the students that we minister with. There might be those days when you question whether you like them or not, but you truly love each of them. Where does this love come from and how do you show it to your students? Our love for our students comes out of an abidance of love that we receive from God. We are loved by God, so we love our students. What a better way to reveal who God is than to love our students. We show our students we love them by celebrating life with them and also naming things that will harm them. It is through our actions that our students learn most about our love for God so love them more than anyone else will.

Our students crave to be part of a group. They clamor for likes and comments on Instagram, while counting the retweets and favorites that they get on Twitter. They want to find a place where they can be comfortable, even sometimes doing things they aren’t comfortable with. As we minister with our students, we need to continually remind them that they have a place, and are part of the family of God. Create an environment that feels like a loving and caring family. Make sure your students know and feel that they always belong to God’s family, even if they don’t want to be part of it.

We face choices every day of whether we want to walk in the light of God or walk in the darkness without God. It’s our choice that we get to make every day and one that students wrestle with every day. Our journey with Christ is not one where we are baptized once and then our walk is always in the light. As students struggle with their faith, as they walk between the path that is light and the path that is dark, we need to be able to name for them where they are. We need to celebrate them when they walk the path of light and name for them when they are in the path of darkness.

Easter is the day that we realize hope in the Christian year. Jesus has defeated death and been raised from the dead. Death is not the final answer, but life is the final answer. God came to live amongst us to suffer in our depths and celebrate with our joys. We have the privilege to be welcomed into the lives our students to suffer and celebrate with them. Remember to be authentic with your students and build relationships with them. As you do this, you will be welcomed into their world where you can share in their life.

We are to live our lives so that God is glorified, but it seems to be easier to be caught up in things that are glitzy and glamorous. We seem to be rocked to sleep by what society wants us to do so we don’t respond to what God wants us to do. Our students are the same way and are taken away even quicker. As they try and discover who they are, they seem to be more tempted to chase the popular and the glamorous. We need to help our students stay awake to what God is calling us to do, so what when the call is given, we can respond.

Sometimes our students become so enamored by all that is going on around them they forget to stop and think about where it all came from. They get caught up in the rush of what other people are saying or the perfect hashtag that will go with their tweet. The number of likes and comments drive what they do and forget about their purpose. We need to be able to call this out in our students. We need to remind them that in the midst of the busyness of everything else that is going on and in the pursuit of the perfect picture for Instagram, God is calling them to do something.

Our students’ lives can seem dreary and dark sometimes. How many times have you heard your students complain about going back to school or how much homework they have? Maybe they complain about what is going on at home or problems with their significant other. If you can hear your students’ sighs as you read this, you know what I’m talking about. To overcome this darkness, we need to be their light. We need to sit with them in their troubles, but we also need to name that there is hope and that there is light in their darkness. As we proclaim the life of Jesus, we need to remind them that it is gospel; the life of Jesus is good news.